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TREASON 2 – The Parliament Of Devils, 1459

Introduction

This is the second of two articles I have written about treason. In the first article, I wrote about the Merciless Parliament of 1388 at which eighteen of king Richard II’s closest advisors and friends were tried by parliament and condemned as traitors, against the king’s wishes. In this article I am writing about the ‘Parliament of Devils’ (1459) at which twenty-nine of the kings subjects were attainted and condemned as traitors at the king’s command. Although both parliaments took place against a background of agitation for political reform, there is an important difference between them. In 1388 there was an identifiable judicial process to determine guilt before sentence was passed; whereas in 1459, the Yorkists were condemned as traitors without any previous judicial procedure. The judgement of the parliamentary lords had been replaced by the act of attainder.

Parliament had been the venue and the tribunal for hearing state trials since the reign of Edward I. In cases of high treason it was necessary to try the accused and obtain the judicial judgement of parliament as the kings high court. However, the deposition of Richard II changed all that. From the beginning of the fifteenth century, the judicial procedure all but disappeared.

The Attainder

An act of attainder is a pronouncement of sentence without a judicial determination of guilt. Although attainders have political connotations and were frequently, if not exclusively, used for political ends, the concept is not political in origin. The attainder has its provenance in the common law doctrine of ‘notoriety’. For example, the offence of levying war against the king would be considered notorious if many people had seen it in a battle. In such a case, notoriety acted as an instant conviction.[1] However, by the second half of the fourteenth century, notoriety no longer acted as an instant conviction. It was now considered to be the crown’s indictment, setting out the basis for a prosecution. By the turn of the fifteenth century, the use of notoriety had ceased altogether; the procedure having further changed into the act of attainder.[2] It was the Treason Act of 1351 that drove this process by changing the legal framework. In particular, it had given parliament the power to declare non-statutory offences as treason. That is what happened in 1388, where the grounds for conviction were basically ‘notoriety’. Parliament used its power to ‘declare’ treason as a prelude to a trial and the seizure of the traitors’ estates. Even though this was an unintentional consequence of the act, it set a precedent for others to follow

The sophistication and use of attainders developed by degrees during the first half of the fifteenth century. The act of attainder made against the rebel Jack Cade after his death is a landmark since it was felt necessary to extinguish his civil rights after his death. His offences of ‘imagining the king’s death’ and ‘traitorously levying men’ were not declared treason in 1451; it was simply asserted that they were treason. In 1453, this breach of procedure was remedied by a formal declaration in parliament.

The attainder of the deceased duke of Suffolk was another important case since it was bought by the lords and then by the commons, and resisted on both occasions by the king. Originally, the lord’s attempted to commit Suffolk for misprision in public office. However, this was defeated because the charges were too vague. The commons took on the case by bringing specific allegations of treason, which the king refused to accept on the basis that “treason was neither declared nor charged”.[3] Eventually, the king was forced to accept Suffolk’s impeachment on charges of misprision, but he used his prerogative to save Suffolk’s life. Notwithstanding Suffolk’s subsequent murder at sea, parliament further petitioned for a declaration of treason and forfeiture on the grounds that he had failed to make sufficient response to the impeachment. Although the king refused the petition, he took note of parliament’s formula and showed his own willingness to adapt and use it in 1459. From that date we see a distinct change in the nature and process of attainder. The context for that change was the disaffection caused by the king’s government during the 1450’s.

Context

When the duke York and the earls of Warwick and Salisbury fought the king’s army at St Albans in 1455 they committed treason. Only victory saved them from the consequences of their actions that day. However, the battle left a legacy of bitterness and hatred between the queen, the sons of the Lancastrian lords killed in the battle, and the duke York and his faction. It was a vendetta that neither Lancastrian nor Yorkist ideology was capable of settling for sixteen years.

Six months after St Albans the king had a mental breakdown. Owing to Henry’s incapacity, York was appointed Lord Protector. It was a short appointment as the king recovered his wits within three months. York resigned his position and retired to his northern stronghold. Meanwhile, Queen Margaret took the king, the court and the government administration to Coventry in the Lancastrian heartland. Given the enmity between the queen and York, the task of restoring effective government and preserving a workable balance of power fell on the unaligned nobility. They did their best to preserve loyalty to the king’s royal authority, whilst compromising wherever they could in the interests of unity. However, this became increasingly difficult as the queen’s grip on the king tightened[4]. Gradually, the feeling grew that the queen’s governance, no matter how partisan, was preferable to re-fighting St Alban’s: or worse.

Queen Margaret saw York as a threat to the throne, and an incorrigible rebel and traitor whom she was determined to crush. Eschewing any attempt to heal the wounds created by the rift, she prompted the Lancastrian regime to take an increasingly aggressive stance against York and his supporters. The loss of the protectorship had left York politically isolated, a situation that deteriorated further during 1456-57. First, the queen replaced the Chancellor, the Treasurer and the Lord Privy Seal with her own men. Next, she moved quickly to re-assert royal authority in South Wales at York’s expense. By 1458, York’s exclusion from mainstream English politics was almost complete. His standing as the senior royal duke and second in line to the throne was unsustainable unless he could curb the queen’s power. In March 1458, Henry returned to Westminster from Coventry, ostensibly to address the dissention and division in the realm. Unfortunately, his attempt to arbitrate the differences between Yorkists and Lancastrians was biased. It succeeded only in making matters worse. The subsequent ‘loveday’ at which York and Margaret walked from St Paul’s hand-in-hand was a futile sham. The queen was determined to destroy the Yorkists and they were determined to confront the king with their grievances

On the 24 June 1459, the king held a great council at Coventry. York, Warwick and Salisbury were summoned but did not attend.[5] Such was their mistrust that they would not attend in the absence proper guarantees of their safety. This mutual mistrust was at the heart of the country’s problem leading to war[6]. When the Council did meet, the three Yorkists were indicted for their absence at the instigation of the queen; however, the implication that they had committed treason is obvious.

Queen Margaret had been preparing for outright war in the king’s name for some time. By September 1459 the preparations were almost complete. The king was at Kenilworth with the main body of his army.[7] The queen was recruiting in Cheshire with the Prince of Wales. The military advantage was undoubtedly with the king’s forces. They were strong in numbers and concentrated in a central position; whereas, their opponents were weak in numbers and widely dispersed. York was at Ludlow on the Welsh Marches. Salisbury was two hundred miles away at Middleham in the Yorkshire Dales. Warwick was even further away across the English Channel in Calais. In theory at any rate, the royal army was well placed to manoeuvre on interior lines and defeat the Yorkists in detail. Sensing their peril, the Yorkist arranged to unite their retinues in the west midlands[8] and to put their case directly to the king from a position of relative security, if not strength.[9]

Blore heath and Ludford Bridge

The earl of Warwick landed at Kent in September. He was in a hurry with no time for recruiting sympathetic Kentishmen. Consequently he entered London on the 20 September with only ‘a few hundred’ professional soldiers from the Calais garrison.[10] The next day he left for Warwick and a rendezvous with his father and uncle[11]. Meanwhile; the earl of Salisbury with about five thousand men was on his way from Middleham. York was at Ludlow, nearest to the rendezvous. It is possible that Warwick’s march was ‘shadowed’ by the duke of Somerset’s retinue coming from the southwest and he (Warwick) was ‘forced north of the town and onto Ludlow’ having narrowly avoided a clash of arms with Somerset in the streets of Colehill near Coventry.[12] It may be, as Johnson insinuates, that Somerset was afraid to engage Warwick’s veterans[13].

While Warwick was in London, or soon after, Salisbury’s contingent was approaching Nottingham.[14] Warned of his approach, the king re-deployed his army to cover the Trent crossing, thereby, forcing Salisbury to change course westward towards Ludlow. The proximity of the king’s army and the enforced change of direction had put Salisbury in a tight spot since he was now between the queen/Prince of Wales with the Cheshire levies in front, and the main body of the royal army to his left rear. On the 23 September, Salisbury’s scouts spotted a large Lancastrian force marching to towards them.[15] The queen had detached Lord Audley with ten thousand men to block the Yorkist’s path. Salisbury tried to negotiate a peaceful way out of his difficulty but was unsuccessful. Battle was joined at 1pm and lasted for four hours. It was bitterly fought: however, many of Audley’s troops were green and no match for Salisbury’s northerners, hardened by years of skirmishing on the Anglo-Scottish border. Audley was tricked into leaving his strong defensive position to attack the Yorkists. He mounted two cavalry assaults and one infantry assault, all of which were repulsed. In the last infantry melee, Audley was cut down and the battle lost. Two thousand Lancastrians died in the battle and the close pursuit. Despite his victory, Salisbury was still in danger of being trapped; the king was closing in behind and the Prince of Wales’ remaining levies were nearby. Instead of pressing on to Ludlow immediately, Salisbury dallied on the battlefield. Luckily, the king’s tardiness enabled the Yorkists to slip away under cover of their artillery, which was fired by a lone friar.[16]

Although there was no fighting or politicking for the next fortnight, it would wrong to suggest, as Johnson does, that nothing much was happening. Both side were manoeuvring for an advantage. We can follow the royal army’s southward movements from the king’s itinerary for this period.[17] After combining his forces near Market Drayton (probably on the 25 or 26 September), the king marched it south towards Worcester via Walsall and Coleshill. According to the Parliamentary Roll this was arduous campaigning for Henry. He spent thirty days ‘in the field “…not resting two nights in the same place, except on Sundays’, and sometimes ‘resting in a bare field two nights in a row…in the cold season of the year”[18].

For their part, the Yorkists lords joined forces at Ludlow as soon as possible after Blore Heath: possibly on the 26 or 27 September. What they did next is certain. Their first joint action was to march the army from Ludlow to ‘the neighbourhood of Worcester’. Why they did this, is not so certain. They may have intended to block the king’s advance southward, which threatened their communication with the Southeast, where the most of their sympathisers were. Professor Goodman speculates that they took up a blocking position between Kidderminster and Worcester. [19] However, as soon as the king appeared at the head of his army and ’in guise of war’ (with his banner displayed), the three lords withdrew to Worcester. It wasn’t simply that they were outnumbered; the Yorkists were loath to fight the king’s army, as that would be treason. As if to emphasise their dilemma of whether to fight or not, York and his Neville relatives swore an oath of fellowship in Worcester Cathedral that — saving only their allegiance to the king — they would come to each other’s aid in time of need. They also took the opportunity to further reaffirm their loyalty and to compose an indenture of their grievances. The indenture was sent to the king through Garter King-At-Arms. Whether, the king saw the indenture we cannot say; however, his next action was unequivocal. He ordered the royal army to resume its advance on Worcester

York had no choice now but to retreat southwards.[20] He still baulked at fighting the king and it was necessary to maintain some distances between the two armies. However, York’s decision to cross the river Severn at Ledbury was the defining moment in this campaign since it meant abandoning any hope of escape to the south and the acceptance that he may have to fight for his life. The increasingly fragile Yorkist morale may have forced him to take refuge in the more defensible terrain around Ludlow and the Welsh border. If he had to fight the king then it would be on ground of his own choosing. By the 9 October the Yorkists were at Ludlow and the king was at Leominster, a few miles away. The next day, the Yorkist wrote an open letter to the king protesting their innocence and setting out their case in detail[21] It was a last desperate plea to reason, but it was useless. By now, the fighting spirit in York’s army was non-existent. The king had offered pardon to those who surrendered to his grace within six days; nobody wanted to fight the king. It was the defection of Andrew Trollope who commanded the Calais garrison troops together with most, if not all, of his men (and with valuable intelligence about York’s battle plan) that decided the outcome at Ludford Bridge. York and Rutland fled to Ireland, Warwick, Salisbury and March fled to Calais. Their soldiers and the remainder of York’s family were left to the mercy of the king and queen.

From a military point of view it was a miserable campaign, notable only for the fact that neither side achieved their objective. Despite their numerical superiority and central position, the king’s army failed to defeat the Yorkists in detail, or to prevent the concentration of their retinues. Worse still, they allowed the Yorkist leaders to escape abroad. For their part, the Yorkists failed to convince the king — or anybody else — of their loyalty and good intentions, and were forced to flee ignominiously. However, from professor Bellamy’s point of view ’this pattern of events is of more than antiquarian interest’, since it explains the legal aspects of war. According to the international usages of war, the presence of a king at the forefront of his army with his banner displayed is tantamount to a declaration of war[22]. The Lancastrian keenness to get the monk-like Henry into harness, mounted on a warhorse at the front of his army, with the royal banner displayed was probably inspired by their knowledge of the law. Once these things were in place on the battlefield any attempt by the Yorkists to engage the royal army in battle would be treason (levying war against the king). It would enable the Yorkists’ possessions to be forfeit to the crown without the need for legal process. The sentence of attainder and forfeiture would extend to the Yorkists’ heirs in perpetuity. York’s refusal to stand and fight at Worcester and at Tewkesbury may also have been prompted by his knowledge of the law; it was consistent with his personal position throughout the 1450’s.

The Parliament of Devils

Parliament was summoned to meet at Coventry on the 20 November in anticipation of completing the annihilation of the House of York and the Yorkist cause. Queen Margaret must have thought that after three years of military and political preparations, her plans were about to bear fruit. York and his confederates were within her grasp; their capture or death in battle would ensure Lancastrian hegemony. Even though her enemies had escaped to fight another day, there was still much to play for. The parliamentary attainder of the Yorkists and the forfeiture of their estates would bring unprecedented wealth and power into the royal coffers, which could be exploited for the king’s benefit.[23]

The Coventry Parliament was packed with loyal Lancastrians to ensure royal success.[24] Nothing had been left to chance. The petition for attainder, which was presented to the king, was a carefully worded document in two parts. In all probability, it was drafted by the king’s own lawyers.[25] The first part contained an indictment of Yorkist disloyalty dating back to the beginning of the decade. First, York was accused of stirring Jack Cade to defy the king’s will and to incite rebellion in the realm, and of accroaching royal authority (1450). Second, York was forsworn; he broke his most solemn oath of loyalty and obedience to the king sworn at St Paul’s in 1452. Third, York conspired with the earls of Warwick and Salisbury to levy war on the king at St Albans and despite the king’s clemency he persisted with his wrongdoings. Fourth, the earl of Salisbury with several (named) confederates levied war on the king at Blore Heath. Finally, York and his (named) confederates levied war on the king at Ludford (1459).[26]

On the face of it, the government’s case seems a good one, which Johnson thinks has never been successfully refuted[27]. In truth, the facts are largely against York; he did break his oath of 1452 and he did fight a battle against the king’s army at St Alban’s. It is unlikely that he was behind Cade’s rebellion, but he exploited it to further his own political agenda. Furthermore, his constant criticism of the Henry’s advisors and of their appointment was a direct challenge to the royal prerogative, which possibly amounted to accroachment. Even so, the crown’s case was very far from being irresistible. First, the decision to proceed against the Yorkists by way of parliamentary attainder rather than using the king’s other proscriptive powers, suggests that the government had doubts about the strength of their case. It is a common misconception that the king needed a parliamentary attainder in order to seize the rebels’ possession. As professor Bellamy points out “ It was not the act [of attainder] that supplied the crown with its rights to the rebels’ possessions but the ancient royal prerogative which operated in time of open war.”[28] Bellamy is referring to the king’s power to convict the rebels in a state trial ‘on the king’s record’. That is to say, on the king’s testimony, without the need for corroborative evidence. Under this power, forfeiture would follow as part of the court judgement. The fact that the government did not follow this process raises questions about whether in law, a state of open war existed in 1459. The king was not present at Blore Heath, nor was the royal army engaged in battle at Worcester, Shrewsbury or Ludford. Moreover, the courts of justice remained open during September and October (In the past, the closing of the courts was taken as a sign of open war.). The Yorkist persistent declarations of their loyalty to the king were also problematic, since they struck a cord with those (and there were many) who were sympathetic to the York’s call for political reform but nonetheless demurred at using armed force against the king. These doubts raised the possibility in Lancastrian minds that at some point in the future any judgement obtained ‘by the kings record’ may be challenged, with concomitant wrangling and litigation over the disposal of forfeited estates. This risk would be avoided by a parliamentary declaration of treason and an act of attainder. This particular attainder was actually a clever legal document, which was not open to legal challenge and provided comprehensive provisions for the forfeiture of the Yorkists’ estates.

Another indication of Lancastrian anxiety is found in a contemporary manuscript entitled Somniumvigilantis.[29] The Somnium is a highly stylized narrative of a fictitious court case at which a Yorkist and a Lancastrian argue about justice and mercy. It was written prior to the Coventry parliament by a Lancastrian sympathiser and is partisan. And yet, it provides an insight into the issues exercising the minds of the good and the great at this time. The Yorkist is characterised as arrogant and boorish, bursting into court and demanding clemency. The Lancastrian, who is ‘courteous and just’, allows him a hearing. The Yorkists’ defence is put forward on several grounds. First, mercy is a necessary attribute in a king. That is true and probably explains why there is a subtext of justice and mercy in the Parliamentary Roll account of proceedings and why Henry saw fir to preserve his prerogative to deal with the rebels mercifully, as he saw fit. Second, the realm needed the nobility. I presume that this point is allied to the Yorkist’s third point, that the cause of reform was honourable. These two points together could be construed as arguing the necessity for nobility as a check to a tyrannical monarch. Of course, in the fifteenth century such a view was political dissent. Fourth, there were no specific charges against the Yorkists. This is a good point and may have been legally embarrassing for the crown: but it was not a case winner. Fifth, in view of the threat of a foreign invasion, this was not a good time to destroy those nobles favoured by the people to defend them. These grounds do scant justice to the actual Yorkist position and, predictably, the Lancastrian representative has no trouble crushing them to his own satisfaction. However, the amount of time and ink expended by the author in arguing that the cause of reform, whilst honourable, was an inadequate defence to insurrection suggests Lancastrian nervousness about the strength of their case.

Although the Yorkists were unable to defend the charges against them in parliament, their defence is well known to posterity, having been argued in extant correspondence, bills and indentures produced by them over the course of a decade. The bill published by Warwick on his way over from Calais and the open letter sent by the Yorkists to the king on the 10 October were simply the latest iterations of Yorkist complaints that hadn’t changed in substance since 1450 and which were always carefully drafted to avoid any imputation of treason.[30] Their defence was simple and had the benefit of consistency. The problems of the realm were caused by the king’s evil councillors and not by the king. He was innocent, and was being prevented from ruling, as he would have wished, by these same evil councillors. Ultimately, the Yorkists were compelled to act in the way they did by the intransigence and aggression of the king’s evil councillors. Kendall’s implication that the Yorkists approach had not changed since 1455 does scant justice to the longevity of their argument, which, in fact hadn’t actually changed since 1450. Kendall’s other point, that the repetition of the same narrow pattern of factional armed protest was not enthusing the general population to flock to the Yorkists’ banner, is more substantial.[31] As John Watts has pointed out, it was not that York and the Nevilles lacked imagination so much as the fact that the old arguments still seemed valid.[32] The dispute had not changed in nine years. York continued to blame the ministers and not the king, and the government continued to regard any discussion of its performance as treason. Furthermore, the queen could no more exercise royal authority on behalf of an ineffective king than could York during two protectorships. The underlying problem that the king in his innocence was unfit to rule, was rising to the surface with dangerous consequences for everyone. It would be irrational for York to suppose that he could change the outcome by using the same argument and the same method of protest, He must eventually realise that his problem was insoluble while Henry remained on the throne.

The second part of the attainder contained the provision for forfeiture of the Yorkists’ estates. It was the nub of the document, which in the words of York’s biographer “… bought all of York’s property into the king’s hands”.[33] That is not to mention all the property belonging to the earls of March, Warwick, Salisbury and Rutland, and all the property belonging to the twenty-four other Yorkists who were attainted, all of which fell into the king’s hands. This included property held in fee simple (which was usual) and property held in fee tail (which was unusual).[34] The severity of the forfeiture is an indication of the government’s determination to destroy the Yorkists and their cause. Insofar as the king was merciful, he extended his prerogative to Lord Powis, Walter Devereux and Sir Henry Radford by rejecting the claim for their lands and pardoning them. He also refused a request to attaint Thomas, Lord Stanley for his betrayal at Blore Heath.[35] However, he had no intention of pardoning York or the four earls. They had not submitted to the king’s grace and their destruction was to be permanent.

Little was granted away in fee simple or in fee tail; neither were many leasehold grants made and then only for short periods. The vast bulk of the forfeited estates were put in the charge of royal stewards who were given lifetime appointments and expected to produce a high income for the royal coffers (That is a clear indication of the permanence of the arrangements.). The estates of York and the Nevilles were absorbed into the royal demesne along with, in a few cases, their existing servants. Generally, established administration procedures were respected; although, some rationalization was necessary. For example, the estates of York and Salisbury in Essex and Suffolk were put in the charge of a single royal steward.[36] Despite the care of these arrangements the changes of ownership did not always go smoothly. There was some natural resentment of the new Lancastrian overlords, and the stewards did not all receive a warm welcome when they arrived at the forfeited estates. Johnson believes that, generally, the arrangements for the takeover were honourable; the ducal estate was not dismembered and in theory could be resurrected in the future. Moreover, whilst a pardon for York was unthinkable, Duchess Cicely did receive a maintenance grant from the king for her and her younger children. It was unfortunate for the royal party that the effectiveness of these arrangements was undermined by the fact that the Yorkist leaders were at large and expected to return to England.

Epilogue

The events of the summer and autumn of 1459 changed the course of English history. The Yorkist notion that the king was an innocent victim of his evil councillors was no longer tenable. Regardless of whether he was prevented from reforming the government or was simply unwilling to do so, Henry’s incapacity was obvious; he was unfit to rule. With the benefit of hindsight we can see that this was probably the moment when the duke of York became convinced that he must claim the throne to survive and to bring good governance to the realm. It was a course of action that involved the deposition of an anointed king and the disinheritance of his heir[37]. A protest for political reform was about to become a dynastic civil war.

The Parliament of Devils also had a constitutional importance in its own right. It provided a template for the destruction of the king’s political enemies that upset the balance of power between the king and the three estates of parliament. Since the twelfth century, the cohesion of the English lords had been a relatively effective counter to any royal tendency towards tyranny. Nevertheless, the lords had not themselves succeeded in transforming the government into an oligarchy, though they had tried to do so. And the commons were incapable of creating a democracy; although neither the king nor the lords could ignore them. In the words of professor Bellamy: “The late medieval law of treason was both a cause and a result of this balance and when it was tampered with there was a serious danger to constitutional government.” [38]

Acts of attainder were a method for popular participation in the ‘legal’ process. The lords or the commons could sponsor them, or the king could introduce them. Those bills put forward by the lords and by the commons were not always successful (e.g. the impeachment of Suffolk, 1450) those introduced by the king were never unsuccessful. The Parliament of Devils confirmed that royal power was paramount. The attainted Yorkists’ protest that they had not been allowed to answer the charges against them was unique. There is no evidence that either the lords or the commons opposed a bill of attainder by the king. From 1459, the attainder process was dominated by the royal prerogative: “It was openly acknowledged as a much surer way of getting a conviction for treason than by [the] common law and for this reason was used as often as possible. It is a form of treason in which the magnates and people play no part except when they were the victims.”[39]

[1] JG Bellamy –The Law of Treason in England in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge 1970) pp.177-179.

[4] JS Davies (Editor) – An English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI (Camden LXIV 1856) p.79 http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/acv5981.0001.001 Bertram Wolffe – Henry VI (Yale 2001 edition) pp.302-318. Wolffe disputes the conventional view that Henry was a saint-like innocent in the hands of his vengeful queen and her Lancastrian ‘gallants’. Facets of his character identified by Wolffe are: unforgiving, vindictive credulous, divisive, vacillating but stubborn and lacking political acumen. He argues that Henry was simply a bad king, who knew what he was doing: “if he was manipulated by the queen…he was manipulated willingly” (318). For a contrary opinion see RA Griffiths – The Reign of Henry VI (Sutton 1980): “ The [Yorkist] lords accurately divined that whatever his personal inclinations were…[Henry] was powerless in the hands of the queen and her advisors and it was they who were pursuing the vendetta against York and his Neville allies.” (819).

[5] Alison Hanham – John Benet’s Chronicle 1399-1462: an English translation (Palgrave Macmillan 2016) p.44: according to Benet, in addition to the absent Yorkist lords, the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops of Ely and of Exeter, the earl of Arundel, Lord Bourchier and others failed to attend. All were indicted ‘ as a result of the advice of the queen’.

[7] Anthony Goodman – The Wars of the Roses: military activity and English society 1452-97 (Routledge and Kegan Paul 1981) pp.30, 237 note 57. Goodman cites Dr Colin Richmond (The Nobility and the Wars of the Roses 1459-61; Nottingham Medieval Studies, 21 [1977]). The following were rewarded for their service against the Yorkists: the dukes of Buckingham and Exeter, the earls of Arundel, Devon, Northumberland, Shrewsbury and Wiltshire, Viscount Beaumont and ‘at least ten barons of parliament’. In addition, the king had Somerset’s retinue arriving from the south-west, plus the remainder of Northumberland’s northern contingent (Thomas Percy, Lord Egremont and the earl of Westmorland). The queen was recruiting troops in Cheshire and Lancashire with the Prince of Wales (nominally commanded by the infant Prince but actually commanded by the queen.).

[10] Griffiths (pp. 817, 847 note 275) puts the figure as ‘variously 300-500 men’; Johnson (p186) says he had a significant force’. It is difficult to know what Johnson means by ‘significant’ but with the benefit of hindsight we can see that Warwick’s retinue was probably counted in three figures. However, their significance may have been their military quality and not their numbers. Goodman (p.26) credits Warwick with ‘a few hundred men’.

[11] Goodman (p26). This is plausible; nevertheless, it is only conjecture.

[13] Johnson p.187 and Goodman p.236 note 35. Goodman finds it difficult to account for Warwick’s presence in Coleshill. He might have been acting independently against the king as Goodman suggests; though, it seems unlikely since he was weak in numbers and in the midst of the king’s army. It is also possible (I put it no higher) that he was looking for the quickest way out of a trap, with the intention of making his way across country to Ludlow. By now he would have realised the impossibility of the Yorkists’ meeting at Warwick.

[14] Goodman p.236, note 40, provides a useful summary of the contemporary estimates of Salisbury’s numbers, which I need not repeat. I personally think he had between 3000 and 5000 men, with an artillery train. His contingent was probably the most effective fighting force at the Yorkists disposal.

[15] Goodman p.236, note 40 lists the various chronicle estimates of the comparative size of the respective armies. Suffice to say that Salisbury was outnumbered, perhaps by 2:1

[16] Gregory’s Chronicle, ibid: see also David Smurthwaite – The complete Guide to the Battlefields of Britain (Michael Joseph Ltd 1984) p.101.

[17] Wolffe, p.371: Wolffe’s biography has been much criticised; however, the royal itinerary he has constructed from the kings signet correspondence, household accounts, privy seal documents and royal warrants was invaluable in helping me to understand these events.

[19] English Chronicle pp.80-81; Benet p.44 and Goodman p.29: for a different interpretation see Trevor Royle- The Wars of the Roses (Abacus 2010) pp. 242-243. Royle reverses the roles: he suggests that it was the king who intercepted the Yorkists on their march to London. Once York saw the king’s army in position and the way blocked, he retreated to Worcester. It is not an impossible scenario, but it is unlikely. I can think of no good reason why York would march his army north towards the king’s host, if he was actually trying to escape to the southeast. Goodman’s analysis seems far more plausible to me.

[20] Johnson p.188 thinks it is ‘odd’ that York retreated to Ludlow via Tewkesbury since it implied he was trying to escape to the south, a manoeuvre that Henry successfully blocked. My interpretation of Yorks reasoning is slightly different. First, Henry was obviously not in close pursuit of York; we have no record of skirmishing between the forces; moreover, Henry’s whole command had been ‘sluggish’. His failure to concentrate his forces quickly had allowed Salisbury to escape the trap at Blore Heath. Second, York may well have been trying to escape southwards, but changed his mind in light of his army’s fragile morale (The Yorkist soldiers were wary of fighting their anointed king and the offer of a pardon was tempting.). Ludlow offered a good position if the Yorkists had to fight.

[21] English Chronicle pp. 81,82; this sets out Yorks letter in full, which I would not repeat here, as the Chronicle is freely available on line for anybody interested to read.

[23] Griffiths pp. 825-826 It was never a realistic prospect that this wealth would be used to support the public exchequer or frittered away on injudicious grants to royal friends. Given royal impecuniosity this vast wealth was more likely to find its way into the king’s purse.

[24] Griffiths p.823; “ Among the 169 members whose identity is reasonably certain (out of 260), one has to search long and hard to find a single servant of either York or Neville”. In Griffiths’ opinion the election was engineered in favour of known loyalists (an opinion echoed by Bellamy (p.147). Nevertheless, Rosemary Horrox doesn’t believe it was an aggressively partisan assembly. She ‘deduces this from the care taken to justify the severe measures taken’ (PROME p.448).

[25] See Bellamy at p.197 and Griffiths at p.824; the authorities disagree as to who precisely drafted the act of attainder.

[26] Even though, York and the other leaders fled, the Yorkists ‘fired their guns at the king’.

[30] Margaret Kekewich and others (Eds) – The Politics of 15th Century England: John Vale’s Book (Sutton Publishing and the Richard III & Yorkist History Trust 1995) P.27. The Articles if the earl of Warwick on his way from Calais to Ludlow, 1459 (British Library Manuscript Additional 48031A ff. 137-138) is published for the first time at pp. 208-209. See also, Gregory’s Chronicle, ibid: Johnson p.188, and Griffiths p. 817

[34] The SOED, 5th edition (2005); Fee simple’ is defined as the ‘Tenure of a heritable estate in land etc. forever and without restriction to any particular class of heirs. Fee tail is defined as ‘Tenure of a heritable estate entailed or restricted to some particular class of heirs of the person to whom it is granted’.

[35]. The king ordered Thomas Lord Stanley with his northern retinue to join the queen/Prince of Wales’ levies in Cheshire; but Stanley, who was in secret correspondence with Salisbury, prevaricated and did not arrive in time to fight at Blore Heath. His northern troopers were sorely missed by the green Lancastrians and it is clear that feeling against Stanley ran high in royal circles. However, in typical fashion he managed to rehabilitate himself with the king so that he was not included in the attainder. The king refused to grant a separate petition for Stanley’s attainder; probably, because his support in the northwest was essential after York escaped to Ireland. William Stanley who fought with Salisbury at Blore Heath was attainted. The Stanley’s did not just ‘sit on the fence’; they straddled both sides of it.

[36] Almost all of this section is taken from Griffiths (p.826) and Johnson (pp.192-194).

[37] My opinion about York’s intention is conjecture; though his subsequent attempt to claim the throne suggests it is plausible. Unfortunately, as the events of 1460 were to show, York had misjudged the mood of the country. Even though there was dissatisfaction with the government’s performance, there was little appetite for Henry’s deposition.